The One Room Schoolhouse

Squanto did come to the rescue, but it wasn’t until Spring.   The Pilgrims had a bitter, heart-breaking winter to endure.   Though land was sighted November 11 th , it wasn’t until December 23 that a work party went ashore to begin building permanent structures.   The Mayflower, having been moved from it’s original anchoring to Plymouth Harbor, over 20 miles away, had become a veritable floating hospital.   Each day there were new deaths, including William Bradford’s wife, and another passenger’s stillborn baby.   In their weakened condition, the first framed structure went up on Christmas day.   There was no rest for the Pilgrims that day. By the time Spring arrived, 52 of the original 102 passengers were dead.   Yet despite the death toll, there were unexplainable survivors.   Four families of the Pilgrims had been untouched.   Two families of the Strangers had more than a fifth of all the young people between them.   A once segregat...

Once the passengers of the Mayflower sighted land and subsequently escaped Pollack Rip and made it back to Cape Cod, it wasn’t as if everyone could walk down the landing plank and begin life on new land.   The shallow waters of the area made it so that ships the size of the Mayflower had to anchor as far out as a mile from shore.   A party of men would need to go ashore and find a suitable place for the newcomers. During the Atlantic voyage, a small sailing ship, a shallop, had been dismantled and stored in at least four separate places in the Mayflower .   Along with passengers in a row boat, the pieces were taken to shore to be reassembled.   Already into winter weather, i t would take longer than desired to put together.   Not wanting to delay any longer, a scouting trip set out to the nearest land while the carpenter and assistants went to work to reassemble the shallop.   Bradford and young Howland were part of this first scouting trip that proved...

“The favorable hand of Providence” is how George Washington commonly referred to advantages won during the Revolutionary War as a result of weather.  Any study of that war will confirm that the weather, be it snow, rain, wind, freezes, or thaws, played a major role in the victories of the colonies against the world’s superpower.  That same “favorable hand of Providence” was with the Pilgrims. Experts refer to the climate of New England during the time of the Pilgrims as the “little ice age.”  Winters were unusually long and harsh, and such was the winter that welcomed the bedraggled travelers.  It wasn’t long before death was a part of life.  Before the end of the first winter, three families had been completely lost, and several children had been orphaned.  By spring, 50 of the 102 passengers remained.  To say that the Pilgrims were spent physically and emotionally is a gross understatement. Yet, uncharacteristic for “the little ice age,” an early...

The other most popular native name familiar in the story of the Pilgrims belongs to the chief of chiefs, Massasoit.  Indeed, he was the highest authority in the area of the many neighboring tribes, each with their own leader.  He was what they called a “sachem.”  Upon the arrival of the Pilgrims to the area, one order from Massasoit would have annihilated the sick and weary travelers.  Such native commands had been the cause of much death in former attempts in colonization by the Europeans along the coastline.  Why didn’t Massasoit use his power to once again obliterate the threat to the established native affairs?  Once again, William Bradford recognized the exception as an act of God’s grace towards the Pilgrims. Early on, Massasoit met the leaders of the Pilgrims and began a relationship that lasted for a remarkable 50 peaceful years.   The alliance took work, and at times it was complicated.   However, it was a true and upheld treaty between...

All I knew about Squanto when I became intrigued with the story of the Pilgrims, was that he was the Indian that helped the Pilgrims learn how to farm in their new land.  Learning some of his story has been another witness to me of a divine plan for the Pilgrim's eventual success. Now, when I think of Squanto, I can't help but think Joseph of Egypt.  The Bible teaches us of the young boy, sold into servitude, separated from family, and taken to a strange land.  Joseph had to learn a new culture and a new language.  Through test and trial and perseverance, Joseph became not only instrumental, but critical in the saving of a foreign people and a foreign nation.   That is Squanto's story as well. Before the Pilgrims ever set foot on American soil, many Europeans had come having heard of all the wonders of the new land.  Some came for fur, some came for fish, and others came for a variety of New World treasures.  What they didn't come for was long-ter...

There are two men who traveled on the Mayflower who particularly appear in sharp contrast.  Their life experience up to that 1620 adventure had nothing to do with their destiny.  God was at the helm. Of the 102 passengers aboard The Mayflower , there were those with and without "sea legs."  The Pilgrims suffered terribly from seasickness.  Those with "sea legs" often took great delight in mocking those who suffered from the continual and drastic movement of the ship.  One sailor on The Mayflower especially gloated over his superior ability to weather the seas and the weakness of the Pilgrims in their compromised conditions.  William Bradford later wrote that this sailor was "a proud and very profane man" daily causing grief for the Pilgrims.  He even went so far as to say "he hoped to help to cast half of them overboard before they came to their journey's end."   I can't help but think of the prophet Obadiah's words when I think of th...

Hindsight is 20/20, and the part of the story about the ship that never sailed is quite intriguing.   Several of the Pilgrims that started the journey never made it aboard The Mayflower .  Though the final departure of The Mayflower was from Plymouth, England, the original departure of the Pilgrims was from the Dutch port Delfshaven.  Preparations and plans for the voyage by those with whom they had agreed to make those plans had not been going well, nor fast.  As a result, the Pilgrims in Holland had sold belongings and purchased a 60 ton vessel named the Speedwell .  It was less than 50 feet long, but considered long enough to cross the Atlantic.  Its size would allow for exploration and fishing along the new coastline.  The Pilgrims also hired a captain and crew who agreed to stay on for a year and help with the settlement.   The captain, known as "Mr. Reynolds," and the crew had the masts of Speedwell replaced with larger masts for...